1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to a holder for holding a plastic bag or sack and in particular to a holding strip particularly suited for holding and, therefore, permitting the convenient reusing of the kind of small plastic bag that is often provided to shoppers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It has long been recognized that plastic bags are not self-supporting and, therefore, must always be used in conjunction with some kind of means that holds them open during use. Probably, most of the time, this is the user, who holds the bag open with one hand while filling it with refuse with the other. Large garbage bags and even plastic liners for waste baskets are commonly held open for use, respectively, by the garbage can or the waste basket with which they are placed in service. The top of the bag is usually folded back around the rim of the container to hold the bag open. The depth of the bag is usually greater than the depth of the container so that it is really the bottom of the container, and not the bag, that supports the garbage or waste as the bag is filled.
Containers are not the only auxiliary supporting structure used with bags, however. Leaf bags or lawn bags used for grass clippings and the like are often supported by a frame-and-stand arrangement. In such a structure, the top of a bag is folded over the frame and an elastic band is placed over the folded top edge to secure it to the frame. The bag usually is sufficiently deep to rest on the bottom of the frame so that when the bag is loaded there is little extra weight put on the frame by the bag. Therefore, the bag does not pull free.
Recent structures that have appeared in the patent art include a garbage bag holder comprising a plastic molding with integral hinge webs connecting with the ends of linked U-shape frame members (U.S. Pat. No. 4,537,377, Shewchuk); a frame for a leaf-collecting bag having a rectangular frame with legs holding it upright, the frame being provided with clips for attaching the bag at the frame corners (U.S. Pat. No. 4,759,519, Cheng); and trash can adaptor ring and clip for securing a plastic bag within a trash can, the ring including multiple spikes for hooking over the bag (U.S. Pat. No. 4,925,056, McCoig). None of these prior art structures really address the needs solved by the present invention, however.
Shoppers at the grocery store, hardware store, drug store and the like are often provided small plastic bags at the check out counter in which to take home their purchases. Such a plastic shopping bag includes handles to allow the shopper to carry his or her purchases without having to support the bag from underneath, as with the paper sacks that have been in use for quite some time. When the shopper arrives home and unloads and puts away the contents that were carried home in the sack, the sack is generally discarded or thrown away.
Occasionally, someone may reuse such a sack by looping one or both handles of the sack over a convenient door knob or cabinet knob. The reason that this is not done more often, however, is that the sack is not really conveniently held open, requiring that two hands be used to discard something into the sack. Moreover, it is inconvenient to have a sack attached to a door or a drawer or the like that swings to and fro every time the door is opened or closed or the drawer is used. Nevertheless, it is apparent that such sacks are not worn out by being used just once for carrying purchases home from the store. And, the size of these sacks does make them desirable for small accumulations of light waste that might occur in a bathroom, bed room, shop, boat, recreational vehicle or the like.
It has been observed that some stores that provide these small plastic bags at their checkout counters do have wire racks or the like over which the plastic straps are looped to make is convenient for the sacker to take one from the rack when needed. Such racks are suitable for dispensing plastic bags, but they do not hold the bags open to assist loading. In any event, the structure of the racks with holding arms and the like are not acceptable for home or other personal use as described hereafter for the present invention.
Therefore, it is a feature of the present invention to provide an improved holder for a small plastic bag with handles or straps that conveniently holds such bag in an open position for use.
It is another feature of the present invention to provide such an improved holder that allows one to quickly and easily use for holding a small plastic bag and for removing such a bag when it is full.
If is still another feature of the present invention to provide an improved holder for a plastic bag that takes little space by itself so that when a bag is not being held the appearance of the holder is very unobtrusive.